Pinterest Thursday: I Tried It!

This week I wanted to try a cute pin I found a while ago:

Click here to go to my pin and click through to the original tutorial.

We travel a lot (or so I thought, until I made this haha), so I thought it would be really cute.  We also just moved into our house in December, so we still have a lot of empty wall space to decorate.  I thought this cute little handmade map would be unique and a great way to personalize a room.

You can check out the original tutorial to get step-by-step instructions.  I followed them with just a few changes.  I bought a 16x20 canvas for cheap at Hobby Lobby, a bunch of cute scrapbook paper, some miscellaneous cute small buttons, some paint for the canvas, and a pack of wooden letters.  I also already had some Modge Podge at home.

 Oooh a bunch of scrapbook paper...

I knew it would take me a good while to cut out all these states (curse you, New England).  One weekend when the husband was out of town, I had yet another TV marathon (I think this time it was Fringe) cutting out all the states.

I started by printing out a blown up map of the US here: http://www.vmapas.com/Americas/United_States/United_States_US_Blank_Map.jpg/maps-en.html?map_viewMap=1

I printed to poster so the states would be big enough to fit on my rather large canvas.

Then, I cut out each state (that took forever).  I rotated through all my scrapbook papers and traced each state on them.  Since I didn't have as many papers as I did states, I just made sure to keep all the patterns spread out (does that make sense?). 

I painted my canvas blue.  You can see in the original tutorial she uses a more neutral beigey color, but I love bright blue and I thought it'd look ocean-y.  After it dried, I glued on my states as precisely as I could.  I then modge podged over the entire map to give it a nice glossy look and hold down any curling ends of the paper.

I debated adding any words or a title to my map.  I didn't really want "Oh the places you'll go", which is a Dr. Suess quote the original tutorial uses.  We don't have any kids yet so I just wasn't feeling the Seuss.  I decided on "Wanderlust".  I painted the letters a bright green and glued them on my canvas.

The finishing touch was gluing my little buttons on the map for the places we'd visited.  My husband and I agreed on some ground rules.  I could only "button" places we had both visited together, and we had to have stayed overnight there (not just driven through). Only one button per state, even if we've been to multiple cities, and I put a heart button for the two cities we've lived in -- Baton Rouge and Houston.

Ta da! Sorry for the crapola picture.  Really bad lighting.

Turns out the only states we've visited are all the southeastern ones....plus Massachusetts (where the button is practically bigger than the state).

I sort of start rushing when I get tired of working on a really tedious project, so I wish I had taken more time with the letters at the top.  I painted and glued them on before they were totally dry and got some green smudges on my canvas...but oh well :)

I'm really glad I made this, and I can't wait to be able to add more buttons to it!  Hopefully someday oneday it will be full!

And that conclues this week's Pinterest Thursday!

Do you want to participate in Pinterest Thursday?  Feel free to join me and link up at bythebookpaper!